


For the damaged

by flambydelrabies



Series: Fear's Ascent [2]
Category: Tales of Crestoria
Genre: Drabble, Established Relationship, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Pining, feelings are hard when you're the big bad transgressor, makeout sessions, or at least established something
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-26
Updated: 2020-12-26
Packaged: 2021-03-11 04:21:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 989
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28339143
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flambydelrabies/pseuds/flambydelrabies
Summary: Vicious doesn't know who he is, because he's never been that person before, someone who doesn't have to lie or steal or live a life of loneliness anymore, and he doesn't know how to be that person because before Aegis this persondidn't exist.Coda to Fear's Ascent.
Relationships: Aegis Alver/Vicious
Series: Fear's Ascent [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2075301
Comments: 4
Kudos: 23





	For the damaged

**Author's Note:**

  * For [komorykatt](https://archiveofourown.org/users/komorykatt/gifts).



> So about 4-5 months ago when Crestoria first came out I wrote a vi/ae fic for my friend by the name Fear's Ascent, and it was just a silly little makeout drabble that somehow ended up becoming (at the time of this posting) one of the most popular fics in the tag. With a little inspiration from my friend @/komorykatt and their most recent Vicious pining fic, I decided to revisit it and write a slight reply focusing on Vicious' perspective and how the relationship sort of evolves from that fic I wrote what feels like forever ago now. So i'm dedicating this to Katt, please go check out their own Tales works!

Vicious wakes on a hair trigger at night.

He manages it well, somehow, masking it through heavy eyes and flinches so subtle they’d hardly register to anyone who didn’t share a bed with him every night. He’d become used to that, always dozing but never sleeping, then waking up in an empty bed with the cold comfort of knowing this was what he chose for himself alone. Nobody ever prepared him for the fact that the life of a transgressor is a terribly lonely one, but then again, nobody prepared him for anything at all.

Most of all, nobody ever prepared him for sleeping with a warm body nestled between his arms, and maybe that was just his luck. He’d accepted solitude with a cutthroat demeanor and a cracked grin, scabbing over an emotion he can’t place and doesn’t care to anyways, so instead he holds that same body in his arms and pretends he doesn’t care because that’s all he’s ever known, anyways.

And  _ still, _ Vicious wakes on a hair trigger at night, and he flinches even more when Aegis pulls the covers away and steps out of bed to stretch his arms and let the starlight spin his hair silver.

Vicious' eyes creak open at the sudden absence, a kind of emptiness that was only unfamiliar because nothing had ever been there before any of this. When his vision meets light to see Aegis' figure carving out his own sun against the night sky, he forgets how to sleep entirely. 

When Aegis sits against the windowsill, his pale hair and skin shining bright against the moon, Vicious can't help but think he looks ethereal-- Some kind of creature whittled out of all things good and righteous in this world, juxtaposed only by a Stain searing over his heart. Too good for a world like this and too good for _ him, _ surely. 

"You're awake," Aegis finally mutters, letting himself burn, the constellations of stars through the window gleaming like wings at his back, and Vicious cuts the curtains to tear himself from faux-slumber and lean his bare shoulders against the headboard. He keeps himself a clinical distance away. 

"What's it to you?" he says back with knit brows and a heavy smirk. Aegis' eyes nearly glow amber against the backdrop of the sky, and something in him stills, but not enough for either of them to drop the act. Vicious wonders who will first. 

"This seems to be an ongoing issue for you." Aegis' voice is indifferent, each breath a time-bomb and every word another match to set it ablaze. And still, those words catch him off-guard, left with his own guns to his head wondering when Aegis will give in and pull the trigger. 

"Don't need someone like you caring about me, y'know," he bites back, and his words don’t help anything, but he disregards the thought when he stops and thinks  _ what else is new, anyways? _

"Then I won't. I apologize for trying." Aegis replies with a hum in his voice, but his tone rings unconvincing at best. 

Vicious stands, waltzing over to Aegis' side and he beats his own heart in submission, because pain and longing both make you helpless, and he’s done everything he can to shut those things as far from his heartless body as he can, to feel nothing, to be nothing, because in the end that’s all there is. He always knew that people win or lose entirely by choice, and he reaches into himself as far as his bloodied hands can grab and chooses neither.

“Are you afraid of me?” Vicious asks, hovering over Aegis the same way he'd done in back alleys and dark corners and every other motel bed they'd ever slept together in. Aegis does not flinch, even as close as they are. When he answers back, the single word may as well rend his heart in two. 

"No."

Vicious' eyes widen for a second alone, just like those tiny flinches he tries so hard to hide when he wakes in the night, and Aegis notices all the same. They keep each other at arm's distance even in spite of everything else because that's all they know how to do. And still, the way Aegis looks at him with those doe-eyes and rose-flushed cheeks, Vicious reaches out a hand, maybe to brush the curls from his eyes but really, he doesn't know anymore. Aegis' spear-trained reflexes take hold anyways, and he seizes Vicious' wrist long before it can ever graze his skin. 

"Why?" he asks back, and at this point he doesn't know what or why he's asking either. 

Aegis lowers his grip, voice deadpan. "Should I be afraid of you?" He says back, but it's more a statement than any semblance of a question, and Vicious has no time to respond anyways, because this time, it's Aegis who pulls him tight, locking their lips together in a graceless kiss. 

Something subdues in both of them as it deepens, and something like this is so much more gentle than Vicious ever thought he was capable of. In moments like these he's not the big, bad wolf, or whatever tales mothers tell to their children of the Great Transgressor to scare them into obedience. He doesn't know who he is, because he's never been that person before, someone who doesn't have to lie or steal or live a life of loneliness anymore, and he doesn't know how to be that person because before Aegis this person  _ didn't exist. _

Vicious takes Aegis by the waist, pulling him from the frostbitten window and back into bed. Their lips never part as they collapse against the mess of blankets and sheets, and none of these emotions have ever made sense to Vicious, but in this moment they finally do. 

He sleeps through the rest of the night without waking, Aegis curled in his arms like something precious. 

Vicious burns now, too. 


End file.
